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Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - Bill of Rights

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Preservation and Proposition

Our mission is to document the pivotal Second Amendment events that occurred in Frontier Mercersburg, and its environs, and to heighten awareness of the importance of these events in the founding of our Nation.

We are dedicated to the preservation of the place where the Second Amendment was "born" and to the proposition that the Second Amendment (the "right to bear arms") is the keystone of our Liberty and the Republic.

Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect that the outcome of the recall election in Colorado will not change partisan control of the state legislature. Democrats control the Colorado state Senate 20-15, and two Democrats are being challenged in the recall.

Million-dollar campaigns, saturation advertising and massive canvassing have become commonplace in U.S. elections, especially in a swing state such as Colorado. A campaign underway there has all of the above � in a recall vote for two state senators that has become a showdown over gun policy and political dominance in a changing state.

Democratic state Sens. Angela Giron and John Morse voted to require universal background checks for gun purchases and to ban large-capacity ammunition magazines. Colorado passed the restrictions in March, within a year of mass shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn. Gun control opponents have mounted a campaign to kick them out of office; voting ends Tuesday.
A welter of national groups are pouring at least $2 million into Tuesday's recall election, the first in Colorado history. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder of a mayors' gun control group, contributed $350,000; his fellow billionaire Eli Broad contributed $250,000. The gun control group founded by former representative Gabrielle Giffords is running ads, as is VoteVets and a labor organization. The National Rifle Association will spend about $500,000 on mailings, TV ads and phone banks.

"This was an incredibly passionate issue, very high profile," said Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli. "It just went right up the flagpole. It was unbelievably hot immediately."

Opponents of the recall say it's an effort to intimidate state legislators in Colorado and elsewhere who might vote for more stringent gun laws. Dudley Brown, head of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, is happy to have the Colorado recall seen as a national example. "We're certainly a bellwether state, and it's going to send a signal all around the country that this is a really dangerous thing for your political career to vote against the Second Amendment," he said.

Tim Knight, one of the original activists in the recall effort, says he is angry about the gun laws, but the recall is a more general protest about government overreach. "I don t think it's intimidation. I think it's accountability," he said. The recall "is going to remind every legislator that they actually work for the people."

Jennie Peek-Dunstone, who heads Giron's campaign, expects the election will be close. She agrees the key issue is not gun policy but governance. "It's a battle over whether or not we're going to govern with integrity, which is not relating to any one issue," Peek-Dunstone said. "What's unfortunate is that what you're seeing is that a group of people who would disagree on one issue could have their temper tantrum and force taxpayers to spent half a million dollars because they can't wait for the election next year."

State Democratic chair Rick Palacio said recalls aren't the way to settle what he calls a policy dispute. "These aren't issues that rise to the level of recalling a sitting legislator," he said.

Morse, the state Senate President whose district includes Colorado Springs, can't run for re-election in 2014 because of term limits. Giron from Pueblo is in her first term in the Legislature.

Tamra Farah, coordinator of the effort to unseat Morse, said a recall is a valid option, provided by the state constitution, for voters unhappy with their representatives. "That's what they chose as a district, and that's their freedom," she said.

"Why the push, why now? Colorado didn't want to put up with waiting any longer," Knight said. Signatures from 16,000 people on petitions forced the recall.

Mail-in ballots, which most Colorado voters use for regular elections, are not allowed in the recall, so both sides are focused on voter turnout. If the recall succeeds, the two legislators would be replaced by Republicans. If that happens, "my fear is that the recall process is used continuously," Palacio said. "I would imagine that Democrats could be tempted to try to use it in the future if things go the pro-recall way. That's not the way we should govern."

The Colorado recall will send a message to other states, Ciruli said, "when there's no progress being made in Washington and the states are the only place where there is any hope of getting anything done." But the recall reflects a political landscape that is distinctly Colorado, where Democrats, boosted by young and Hispanic voters, have been on a winning streak.

"It is an absolute test for the progressive agenda," Ciruli said. "It's not exactly the whole state getting up and voting here. Nonetheless, it's turned out to be something we're all watching. � How much has Colorado really changed?"

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It All Started Here . . .

Frontier Mercersburg in 1765 was the "birthplace" of the right we now refer to as "the Second Amendment", or, "the right to bear arms". It was here that individuals for the first time, some would say divinely, embraced the link between "Life and Liberty". . . and struck the first blow for Freedom.

Historically the right to bear arms goes back even before our founding as a nation to the Glorious Revolution of 1689 when William III agreed to the English Bill of Rights. If one can look at revolution like a volcanic eruption in nature, you understand that often from the destruction come the seeds of new human values and beliefs. In this case the independence of the human spirit, the right to know God for oneself, and to trust your conscience was hard won in this revolution of the human soul.

One crucible begets the necessity for another and on the frontier in America the right to defend ones religious beliefs was becoming the right to participate in the decisions of government that impact my "self". Freedom of the soul was becoming freedom of the heart and mind. Smith's Rebellion began as an act they justified under the rubric of defending oneself because government had failed in its obligation to protect Life, Liberty and Property. This was the first assertion of this principle aimed directly at British Military Authority as well as the incompetent government of John Penn - anywhere in the colonies.

In the end, Smith's Rebellion was the first armed resistance against British Military Rule leading up to the American Revolution. It was the first American triumph over the best military force in the world. It was the first time upon defending oneself that Americans had proclaimed we can rule ourselves.

It would be ten years before the battles at Lexington and Concord.

...Let Them Take Arms

The "Right to Bear Arms" . . .or 2nd Amendment is one of the most discussed and contentious of all the amendments of the Bill of Rights. It is, in fact, the only amendment that contains not only the seeds but the actual instruments of the revolution itself. Further, it gives real affirmation to Thomas Jefferson's quote . . .

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

It is for this reason, if no other, that the Government and its functionaries vociferously assail and obfuscate the text of this simple assertion. More, it is for this reason, and in the face of the perennial onslaught that its defense and affirmation is essential to the survival of the republic.

Frontier Mercersburg & The Justice William Smith House

The frontier town of Mercersburg, PA. in the 1760's, although typical of many settlements along the Appalachian Mountains played a pivotal role in the creation of what was to become the "Bill of Rights".

Frontiersmen like James Smith and the Black Boys, many of whom were inhabitants of the Mercersburg environs, were early participants in a series of conflicts with the British government that established principles the eventually lead to the inclusion of the "right to bear arms" in the Bill of Rights.

Much of the focus, centers on the domicile (and likely place of business) of Justice William Smith.